Well, this semester has been a huge learning experience for me! At the beginning of the semester I thought, why do I need to come back to school after me internship… I have already been out teaching, why do I need to come back and be a student again? Well, I have to say that I have grown the most as a professional this year! I was able to use my internship experiences and my new experiences from school to reflect and come up with new philosophies (and I am sure I will continue to develop new philosophies of teaching each and every year!).
So, I was tweeting with David Truss and he mentioned he read my Philosophy of Education, he also shared his with me. As I was reading his post I was inspired to re-write my philosophy of education. He mentioned I should keep my old one to look back on and see the growth, so I have it archived away. While I was putting together my philosophy of education, I looked back through my blog and pulled from different reflections to formulate my final product. So here it is:
Every student should have the opportunity to succeed and achieve their greatest potential. I believe in using various instructional strategies and a variety of settings in order to teach to the whole child. My role as an educator is to know my students and their strengths and challenges so that I can adapt my lessons, so that all students are able to be successful.
Society is changing at such a quick pace, so I need to find out what my students need to learn today, to prepare them for tomorrow. I need to capitalize on those serendipitous moments my students encounter. It is my role as an educator to find out what is important and interesting to my students and incorporate their funds of knowledge into my classroom and lessons.
In order to prepare students for this unknown future, I need to foster interactive engagement, so students experience meaningful learning and intellectual development. My role as an educator is to promote student learning and critical thinking skills.
I believe in using inquiry based learning, where teachers are no longer teaching information, but rather facilitating learning. The teacher is there as a guide, to set up learning experiences for students to ask questions and shape their own learning. Ensuring my classrooms focus on the process, not the product.
I think the classroom should expand beyond the four walls of the classroom. Students are growing up in an open source world and know all about having access to the world and we need to apply this access to the world in our classrooms as well. This can be done by teaching students how to use technology to find information and with the information the ability extract and synthesize it to formulate new meaning.
Classrooms should be considered studios, a comfortable environment where there are few lectures; the students work collaboratively in groups to learn, the students are engaged in their learning, and become independent lifelong learners.
I believe it is important to include daily physical activity into the classroom. Physical activity helps children focus on what they are learning. I want to help my students develop positive daily physical activity habits.
School is preparation for life. I have the opportunity to guide and create good citizens. I want to foster an environment where my students are learning together and thinking together long term.
Special thanks to my PLN who has helped me develop this into what it is today! 
I appreciate your feedback!
